


Be Still

by ElegantFeatherDuster



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElegantFeatherDuster/pseuds/ElegantFeatherDuster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki shows up one night with his favorite knife, no explanations and a plan to dig out every last one of Tony's micro-repeaters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Still

**Author's Note:**

> For [tonyloki](http://tonyloki.tumblr.com) who requested "fic where loki digs the micro-repeaters out of tony’s flesh ʘ‿ʘ✿"  
> Given the prompt, please proceed with all due caution. An experiment to see if it's possible for me to write slightly disturbing fic... I'm so sorry.

Loki's been getting worse lately; everyone can see it. But Tony knows better than most because sometimes, for a reason they both seem perfectly content to ignore, Loki visits him in the small hours of the morning before the dawn and long after everyone else has gone to bed. They fight as often as they flirt and most of the time is ends in sex, usually rough and always fantastic. Tony knows it's fucked up, he really does, that he can sleep with someone and wake up the next morning to find them terrorizing Midtown and still be perfectly willing to sleep with them again the next time they come around. But it doesn't stop him doing it. The real problem is that Loki's been getting worse, not better, for a while now and all this time Tony has been ignoring an itch he refuses to call “worry” that some day he's going to be in over his head.

He supposes it's his own fault that he wakes up screaming to the feeling of a heavy body on top of his and ice cold steel sliding into the muscle of his shoulder. He opens his eyes only to find it's too dark to identify the person currently sitting astride his chest, long legs bracketing his sides. Even so, he has a damn good guess who it is; there are only a handful of people with the talent to get into his bedroom without tripping a single alarm.

He's gotten used to the light from the arc reactor such that he doesn't even notice it anymore, even if the people he occasionally shares his bed with do. But his attacker has a hand spread wide over the glass, blotting out most of the light and holding him down all at once.

“Get off!” he barks and then makes a strangled, embarrassing noise when the blade's point shifts in his shoulder as if searching for something.

“Stay still,” Loki's voice commands from above him, and at least that confirms his identity. Maybe he thinks ordering Tony around will work, maybe he just says it because he likes giving orders. But there is no chance in hell Tony is going to lie back and tolerate this, even if it is the devil he knows.

Tony uses his whole body and shoves up furiously, trying to push Loki off. He's not a weak man, he knows he's not, but Loki is a god and what the fuck is he supposed to do about that? He can throw Tony out a window with one hand. So if he wants to act like the villain in some awful thriller novel and sit around idly jabbing at Tony with sharp objects in the middle of the night, he's damn well going to have his way.

It could be worse, Tony thinks, jaw tight. Loki could be using his teeth or a blunt chopstick or something; at least the knife is sharp. Then a shout punches unbidden out of his chest because Loki is digging his nails into the wound instead, grabbing for the tiny pieces of smooth metal without a trace of gentleness.

He's trying for the micro-repeater, Tony realizes through the sharp edges of pain. He hadn't thought of it at first because it doesn't make any fucking sense. But when Loki tosses the repeater over his shoulder like so much junk and moves down a few inches to start on the one in his upper arm, it's painfully clear what he's up to.

Tony gets a moment to breathe before Loki starts on the next micro-repeater, heedless of the blood already seeping warm across Tony's shoulder and pooling on the sheets below. Then pain is stabbing up his arm again and he's trying to squirm away. 

It's not the worst thing he's ever felt, not by a long shot, but it's so much more intimate this way. It's not someone throwing punches or shooting at him; it's someone he's touched, someones he's fucked and maybe even shared a few secrets with sitting on his chest with a cold, determined glint in his eyes. That look throws Tony too because if he'd ever in his darkest dreams imagined something like this happening, the one detail he would have been certain of is that Loki would be smirking at him. It's almost terrifyingly easy to imagine him laughing at the pain and the betrayal Tony just knows is written across his face.

“Stop-” is all Tony gets out before Loki snarls at him, actually snarls like some kind of animal and that's so unlike him is momentarily stuns Tony into silence. Everything about Loki is precision except when he's really, truly backed into a corner and Tony isn't seeing any corners around here. He wonders if something finally pushed Loki off the deep end, although what could possibly be that powerful is intimidating to even consider.

“Fuck you,” Tony gasps out, surging up again to try to dislodge the body pressing down on top of his. What he gets for his trouble is Loki's gold-clad forearm pressing down across his throat, forcing him down and choking off most of his air in the process. Tony scrabbles at his arm with desperate hands, fingertips dragging uselessly over the rises and dips of the intricate design etched into the metal.

“Later,” Loki says absently, and isn't that a laugh that he thinks there will be a later, that Tony will ever touch him again after this. It's infuriating that he doesn't even look like he's struggling to hold Tony down when he's pushing and straining in every direction just to gain an inch. Loki is using his right arm to pin him and that leaves only his left hand to dig around unceremoniously in Tony's flesh, pushing out a steady stream of thick, red blood and sending jolt after jolt of sharp agony up through his arm to make him gasp and curse. 

Loki is talented with both hands, always has been, but some combination of trying to complete his task one-handed and Tony doing absolutely everything but hold still makes him slip every now and then, pushing too deep or twisting too hard. Tony has lost track of the noises he's making, but he knows there are a lot of them and every horrible word in his vocabulary in every language he knows is being put to excellent use.

“Get off me!” Tony shouts through another gasp of pain as Loki pulls out the next one and tosses that aside too. He keeps going, manhandling Tony's arm into submission when he can't reach far enough from his perch atop Tony's chest. It feels like there isn't enough oxygen in the world anymore, but Loki has eased up just enough to let him breathe without passing out. Tony isn't sure if that's a blessing or a curse. Either way, there's going to be an ugly, deep bruise on his throat after this is over.

The fingers of Tony's hand feel slick with blood and it takes him a moment to remember grabbing too desperately at a piece of Loki's armor and slicing his fingers open. The slick of it makes it ever harder to gain purchase on anything, but it doesn't stop him trying. He gasps out for JARVIS a few times and gets no response, tries a litany of the other Avengers' names even though he knows it probably won't do him any fucking good. He's helpless and alone, which is just about his least favorite feeling in the world.

It's that realization that makes him start to panic, and it only makes it worse when he thinks that if he does, Loki isn't going to help him. He'll probably just watch, amused, as Tony hyperventilates and his heart beats too fast under the arc reactor. So he closes his eyes and wills it to go away, tries desperately to tell himself that the only thing that can help him here is a clear head and he simply can't afford to freak out. It doesn't help at all, but Loki driving that knife of his deep into the muscle of Tony's thigh sure does, if only because he's too busy screaming himself hoarse to drive himself into a panicked hole.

“Focus,” Loki says, voice hard and sharp. Tony barely registers the word and it takes a few minutes for his brain to process it properly. By the time he figures out what an odd thing it is to say to someone whose attention to the issue at hand doesn't matter in the slightest, Loki has gone back to ignoring him. Maybe he just wants to make sure every last screwed up moment of this is branded into Tony's memory without distraction.

There are forty nine micro-repeaters, Tony thinks blearily. He doesn't know if Loki intends to remove them all, but he's very conscious of all the sensitive places they reside like the tips of his fingers and the one at the very base of his skull, nowhere near his spinal cord, really, but still far too close for comfort. He loses the exact count somewhere after twenty and stops struggling somewhere near thirty, not so much choosing to lie quiescent as simply running out of energy to do much else. 

The fact that is hurts less when he isn't struggling is something he stubbornly refuses to admit and anyway, it's all a steady wash of pain and the sick, sticky feeling of blood all over his body at this point. It's not like it makes a difference that Loki's quick, clever fingers are doing a better job now that he's worked out his method and Tony isn't trying to buck him off at every opportunity. 

It still feels like an eternity by the time Loki gets off and pushes him over onto his stomach. Tony gathers just enough strength for a token attempt at scrambling away, but Loki only shoves him down hard and tuts like he's a particularly annoying pet and not one of the most powerful people on the planet. 

His hands and the point of the knife are deft and quick at digging out the row of micro-repeaters up the curve of Tony's back. He leaves the one in the back of Tony's neck for last, but when he goes for it, Tony chooses to behave and holds perfectly still with dark visions of Loki shoving his blade in deep and clean out the other side dancing behind his eyes. At least it would be a quick and painless death if he did.

He gets turned over onto his back again shortly thereafter, which gives him the opportunity to look up at Loki, dimly illuminated by the glow from the arc reactor and spit out a slew of angry words that sound weak even to his own ears. Loki frowns at him, all sharp focus that makes Tony feel like wincing. He glares right back and although he doesn't think Loki has ever really been scared of him, he hopes Loki understands just how much fury he's inspired with this stunt.

The feeling of fingers curling into the hem of his boxers is what first alerts Tony to the fact that something is off and by then it's too late because Loki is tugging them down and leaning in and oh, fuck. Tony isn't even turned on, he's not that sick, but Loki's mouth on his dick is nigh impossible to just ignore. He wavers between thinking he should shove Loki off and maybe kick his ass and thinking that Loki really fucking owes him this and a whole hell of a lot more besides. Tony has a terrible habit of failing to order his priorities correctly where Loki is concerned and this just proves the point all over again. Oh, the look on Cap's face if he knew.

Tony swears he almost passes out when he comes. His whole body is screaming at him for so many different reasons at once it's hard to keep track. 

The bed shifts slightly and Tony manages to lift his head and meet Loki's eyes somewhere around the vicinity of his crotch. Then Loki is just gone, disappeared off to wherever he goes when he isn't in the mood to be the single most fucked up person Tony knows.

Tony lets his head flop back and stares at the ceiling, exhausted. He feels weak, breathless and more than a little violated. There are clues here if only he can pull himself together enough to fit one into another, but it's a serious struggle even to keep his eyes open. It's the blood loss, clearly, not the fact that Loki is extraordinarily talented with his mouth; or at least that's what he tells himself. 

Tony really needs to stop liking things about Loki because the list is getting too long for comfort. He frowns and knits his eyebrows together and tries to think of all the things he doesn't like: the fact that he's is a murderer, obviously, except Tony is too; the way he's so obnoxiously bossy and egotistical and occasionally cruel; the way he refuses to ever do or say anything the straight-forward way. The list degenerates quickly into stupid things like the way Loki is pretty ungenerous in bed. He never lets Tony get off if he hasn't already or if the promise of doing so isn't on the horizon. Except, huh, Loki just broke that rule that a few minutes ago. A fact which, incidentally, makes absolutely no sense at all. Loki gave Tony what was very possibly the best orgasm of his life and then left, Tony's blood still all over his hands and probably drying into dark stains all over his clothing. There's no way in hell it's an apology, except that the more Tony thinks about it, the more like an apology it feels.

Eventually, JARVIS–now apparently back online–bullies him into getting up and cleaning his wounds. He even summons Steve, much to Tony's immense displeasure, who demands to know what happened. “Loki” is all Tony will say and eventually Steve is reduced to angrily cleaning and patching up all the spots Tony can't reach. His anger makes him a little too vigorous, but Tony lets it go without comment.

They're all small wounds, but they're everywhere and no matter which way he moves, something stretches and throbs. It's worse than when he first put the micro-repeaters in and was too conscious of all the tiny bits of metal just under the surface that hadn't been there before.

His skin heals and he's still immensely pissed off a month later. They've seen neither hide nor hair of Loki and Thor is, predictably, the one who brings it up the most, even if Tony spends just as much time thinking about it. 

He never told anyone what happened, even deleted the security footage, and he's not sure if Steve ever said anything to anyone else, but somehow he doesn't think he did. No one brings it up and that's good enough for Tony.

Time moves on and they fight the bad guys as they come. Earth's Mightiest Heroes are tested again and again and prove themselves every time. Then Tony is targeted by some bizarre villain from another terrifying, Lovecraftian dimension who's working off of outdated intel - thank god - because his entire plan turns out to revolve around really brutally tearing Tony to pieces with all the bits of non-organic matter in his body. It doesn't work, the matter is resolved, and Tony is almost certain Loki knew this was coming.

“That son of a bitch,” he grouches as he flies over the city in his scratched, battered and broken but mercifully functional suit. He's heading back to the tower, the com channel is closed and there's no one around to hear, so Tony repeats it again more vehemently for good measure.

He almost falls out of the sky in surprise when a very familiar laugh crackles through the speakers in his helmet.


End file.
